LMR licensing activity maintained recent low levels during 2023

Public-safety and business-industrial land-mobile-radio (LMR) licensing continued near historically low levels during 2023 but did not establish any new records, according to figures available in the FCC’s online Universal Licensing System (ULS) database.

In the public-safety space, FCC officials received 3,029 LMR licensing applications during 2023, with 2,999 of them being granted as of today, according to the online ULS database. Even if all 30 of the pending public-safety applications are approved, the total would represent the second-lowest total for the sector during the 23-year history of the online ULS.

The only lower public-safety licensing figure was registered in 2020, when only 2,763 applications in the sector were granted during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Given the number of public-safety LMR license requests already granted, 2023 almost certainly will mark the fifth time during the last six years—the 2020 total being the exception—in which the number of licenses granted in the sector has ranged between 3,000 and 3,200 for the year.

While remarkably consistent, these last six years have produced the lowest six annual public-safety LMR license totals in the history of the online ULS. During the first 17 years of the online ULS, the FCC granted at least 3,400 public-safety LMR licenses in every year, with at least 3,900 being posted in 15 of those years.

In 2012—at the peak of activity driven by a narrowbanding mandate—the FCC approved a record-high 10,602 public-safety licenses. Even if all pending public-safety LMR applications are granted, the 2023 total would represent a 71.4% decrease from the 2012 record.

A similar trend occurred in the business-industrial sector, which saw 9,821 LMR licensing applications submitted during 2023. Of these, 9,508 have been granted as of today, and 313 are still being processed by the FCC.

These figures project to a slight increase in business-industrial LMR licensing compared to last year’s total of 9,697, which would mark the second consecutive year in which the sector would have seen a gain after registering losses during the three previous years.

However, these increases have not been significant, so the 2023 total will mark the fourth consecutive year in which the business-industrial sector has failed to see 10,000 LMR licenses granted. During the first 16 years of the online ULS database, the business-industrial sector had at least 11,250 licenses approved. The FCC granted between 10,200 and 10,800 business-industrial LMR licenses each year between 2017 and 2019, and then the annual total has failed to reach the 10,000 mark during each of the past four years.

Even if all pending business-industrial LMR licensing applications are approved, the 2023 total would represent a 66.8% decrease from the all-time high total of 29,569 licenses granted during the narrowbanding-influenced year of 2012.